The Promised Land I: Lost and Found
by LadyElaine
Summary: Jack, Riddick, and Imam find the sole survivor of the previous eclipse. *Complete!*
1. Survivors

Title: Lost and Found

Author: LadyElaine

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of _Pitch Black_ belong to USA Films and David Twohy.

Summary: Jack, Riddick, and Imam find the sole survivor of the previous eclipse.

Rating: R

****

Lost and Found

I. Survivors

It was Jack who found it--or rather, found its coffin.

They'd been adrift in the shipping lane for only a day, a day which Riddick and Imam had spent in unbroken slumber. The sudden peace following the hellish night had a different effect on Jack, though, who simply went stir crazy.

Fingers drumming on the armrests, feet twitching on the console or tapping on the deck, her whole body was still humming in anticipation of talons and teeth and terror. She shifted and twisted this way and that, vainly trying to capture just a few minutes of the sleep the other two had fallen into so easily.

She turned to find herself abruptly pinned by a pair of cold glints, and all her nervous energy spilled out in a shriek.

"Why don't you try and see what you can scare up in this scrap heap, kid," Riddick suggested in a low rumble.

Ignoring the mocking smile, Jack swallowed against the pounding in her chest. "W-what do you mean?"

"I mean nobody's gonna pay attention to our beacon without a good reason. Most salvagers'd just as soon space you as look at you."

Imam's shadowed form stirred and sat up then. "The Orion Confederacy is not such a savage place, Mr. Riddick. Ships are required to give aid to those in need."

"You haven't traveled these outback lanes, holy man," Riddick retorted. "You don't have cargo to thank those kindly souls with, you wind up back in the tin can you started in." He snorted. "Already dead, if you're lucky."

Jack wondered how Riddick knew so much about those "kindly souls," but decided not to ask. Instead, she got up and began rummaging through the small lockers just inside the hatch. Under the two men's curious gazes, she found a wad of cash and a flare gun. Tossing the roll of credits from hand to hand, she wondered, "What would a traveling team of geologists need cash for?"

"Life insurance," was the sardonic reply. "Like I said, you don't pay your rescuers..."

Jack let Riddick's voice drone on. She'd been tapping her foot for a moment, and only now did she feel the way the tapping rang hollowly beneath her shoe. Hollowly...

"Child? What is it?" Imam asked.

"Do these lifeboats ever have false decks?" Jack asked.

At Riddick's affirmative, Jack knelt down and began peeling the metal floorboards away. She'd seen something, a reflection, maybe? No--a light. A small red light, blinking slowly but steadily. The light was attached to a diagnostic console, which was attached to...

Jack had seen some emergency cryo tubes on the Hunter Gratzner that had been less than half the size of most commercial types. This one barely had enough room for the body curled up inside. The panel was fogged over with who knew how many years of sleeping gas, obscuring the occupant. A heavy hand on Jack's shoulder stopped her impulse to pop open the panel.

"Have a care, child." Imam pulled her away. "The gas must first be cleared." They let Riddick take care of that: neither one doubted the man's technical skills, especially when it came to any kind of confinement.

As the high oxygen wake-up mix replaced the gas, Jack drew in a startled breath. "Um... Aren't aliens supposed to stay out of human space?"

"That is no alien," Imam said coldly. "Neither is it human--exactly." His expression was unreadable as he gazed at what lay inside the coffin.

Riddick's harsh laugh startled both of them. "Party in a can! _Some_one was having fun twenty-two years ago."

He moved to open the panel, when Imam's arm blocked him. "Put her back to sleep. Please."

Jack's gaze shot from Riddick, to Imam, to the figure inside the coffin, now stirring. _Too late now_, she thought, _too dangerous to put anyone right back under._ Imam's arm dropped, his shoulders sagging wearily.

Riddick smirked. "Don't tell me a little sex makes you nervous?"

"What are you talking about?" Jack demanded.

"It's a pet, kid," Riddick said with a self-satisfied grin.

"Oh, I get it." Jack grinned at Riddick and added, "So, like we're gonna use her for extra insur--" She looked back down at the coffin and gasped as amber eyes caught and held her own.

The pet was fully awake now. Short auburn hair, speckled with odd highlights, topped a body lightly covered with tawny, spotted fur. The creature waited obediently to be released, its only sign of anxiety being the hand pressed against the lid. Jack saw claws tipping the fingers, then noticed the tattoo inside the wrist.

"Lihari Den," Imam spat, apparently finished with his prayer. "Where she was _made_. Well, Mr. Riddick, are you going to simply admire her, or will you let her out?" One stern eyebrow rose. "You of all people should know how uncomfortable she is right now."

Riddick stared at Imam for a long moment, and Jack took an uncertain step back as the tension inside the skiff rose. But then the big man shrugged, and as Imam clasped his hands over his prayer beads again, Jack felt herself relaxing. The panel popped open under Riddick's hands, and he hauled the creature out of her coffin, setting her on the bench. Imam seated himself gingerly next to her and draped his outer robe over her nakedness. Other than a small loincloth--_and that fur_, Jack thought with a mixture of curiosity and disgust--her only clothing was a metallic collar that seemed to have been welded about her neck.

A voice rusty from disuse whispered, "Thank you."

Jack returned to the copilot seat next to Riddick. "So. Insurance, right?"

"We'll see, kid."

Moments later, Imam was immersed in quiet conversation with the pet. She seemed reticent to speak, so Imam began telling her the gruesome tale of their own survival.

Jack tuned out their conversation. "Any answers to the beacon yet?" she asked Riddick.

"Yeah, actually. A rescue and salvage ship on its way out of... looks like Janus."

"So they'll pick us up?" Jack couldn't help the eagerness in her voice. Sure, Johns had been an asshole, but she'd bet the whole wad of cash she'd stuffed in her pocket that they weren't all like that. "How much of our valuables you think they'll want? We're going to need a better ship if we want to go anywhere after Janus. What kind of planet is Janus, anyway?"

"A weird one, with the same side is always facing its sun. I've got a little pad on Janus, and money damn near everywhere. We can hole up at my place while you and Imam figure out where you want me to drop you."

Riddick's coldly casual tone shattered Jack's mental images of gallivanting about the galaxy with him. A few nasty thoughts sprang up instead. "So where you gonna drop _her_?" she spat.

Riddick glared at her, his eyes flashing, and she involuntarily shrank away.

"She's a sex slave. You see anyone else here that could be her owner? Imam would rather curl up and die, I think." He chuckled, but neither Imam nor the pet gave any reaction to his cruel remarks. "What, kid--don't tell me _you_ want her?"

Jack's temper snapped. "Hell, yeah, I want her. I want to use her as hard fucking merchandise." She grabbed the wad of credits from her pocket. "I'd rather have this cash than that--" She threw an angry glance behind her, but was stopped cold when she saw the slave staring at her expressionlessly.

"Shut the hell up, kid," Riddick said softly.

Jack's jaw dropped at his tone. She gritted her teeth and turned to gaze out the window into empty space. _Son of a bitch_, she thought. _Nice, Jack, real nice_.

Jack slumped back in her seat, closed her eyes, and waited for a rescue.


	2. A Rescue

****

II. A Rescue

Jack hadn't meant to fall asleep, but her anger with the whole situation had stilled her remaining fear, letting exhaustion creep in. Like one of those nightmarish flying teeth, sleep was stalking the darkness of her mind.

It seized her as soon as she closed her eyes.

__

The blue sun beat mercilessly down on Jack's shoulders. The grainy earth under her feet was a flat but blinding white, broken here and there by mottled gray, smoking carcasses. Blue ichor sizzled under the glare of the suns. She gagged on the stench carried on the gritty breeze.

The rifle she held was not much different than the one Johns had carried, though heavier than she would have expected. It felt good in her hands. She hefted it appreciatively, gazing out with satisfaction at the carnage strewn over the unforgiving plain.

The wind shifted.

She wasn't sure she heard it at first. Cocking her head, she strained past the crunching of her boots on the sand. There! A voice. Someone was crying--someone...

"Fry!" She took off sprinting toward the helpless wails. The crying abruptly stopped, but Jack kept running. "I hear you, Fry! Where are you?" In a near panic, she fell with a yelp headlong over one of the carcasses.

Sitting up, Jack cursed in disgust; her hands were covered with the ichor that had pooled under the beast. She rubbed them on her pants, but the stuff didn't come off. She tried again, wiping them on her pants, on her shirt, even scrubbing them with sand, frantically trying to clean them. But the sticky blue gore remained.

The corpse she'd fallen over began to twitch.

Sand flew as she scrambled backward, whimpering. The thing curled in on itself, clutching at its gaping wounds. Its mouth opened, razor teeth gnashing on empty air as it wept. It was Fry's voice again, Fry's pleading sobs spilling from the monstrous carcass.

Groping in a frenzy, Jack's hands finally found the dropped rifle. It shook as she got up and took aim at the unnatural horror convulsing at her feet. Her finger curled over the trigger as Jack clutched the weapon, slippery in her bloody hands--clutching tighter and tighter as the impossible creature rose onto its tail. Dead flesh hung in strips.

The hammer head bared its teeth. Its breath smelled of old blood, decay, and hopelessness. "Jack." It was Riddick's voice.

She screamed at it and fired.

Riddick wasn't surprised when Jack began shuddering and whimpering in her sleep. He glanced back at the pair of silent silhouettes behind him. Imam's shadow made a curt gesture from Riddick to Jack, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. With a sigh and a shrug, Riddick leaned over and said Jack's name.

She screamed.

"Hey! Jack!" Riddick snapped, but it had no effect. "Take it easy!" Jack's eyes rolled open, but she was still thrashing wildly, tears streaking through the grime on her face. He gritted his teeth against her terrified moans.

Imam's robe brushed past Riddick's face, smelling of blood and grief--and anger. He heard a slap, followed by a gasp from Jack, and looked up.

It was Imam's robe, but Riddick had forgotten the pet was wearing it. The slave's eyes widened when she turned around to see Riddick staring up from the pilot's seat. Riddick let his gaze wander down the robe hanging loosely on her body. Small, dark rosettes meandered over her form. The way she stood said she knew exactly what she'd been made for.

"Got a name, Spots?"

A pink tongue slipped out to lick a drop of sweat from her lip. Her voice was the barest whisper: "Kat."

He felt a sudden urge to touch her, to see if that fur was real, but no sooner did he move his hand, than she'd sidled away back to the bench where Imam still waited silently. The priest gave Riddick a long, dark stare.

"Shit!" came Jack's shaky voice.

Riddick snapped back around to see Jack running frantic hands over the console, where a light blinked to unsteady life. The radio crackled and squealed.

"This is the _Flip Side_, calling unidentified ship. Anyone still alive in there?"

Jack hit the radio's respond switch and fumbled for a reply. "Roger, _Flip Side_, this is... this is... uh..."

"_Last Resort_," the pet supplied quietly.

"This is the _Last Resort_, and hell yeah, we're alive," Jack said, grinning.

"Roger, _Last Resort_. Prepare to be boarded."

Riddick exchanged glances with Jack, but her eyes slipped from his, her grin melting away. "Um. Yeah. I'll get out the 'life insurance'."


	3. Janus: Losing Jack

****

III. Janus: Losing Jack

"Shit!!" Jack kicked the wall of Riddick's tiny flat. "They took fucking everything!" She gave Kat a sideways look--_Not everything_, she snarled silently. Riddick, Mr. Save-the-Day himself, had given the salvagers the flare gun, the cash, and even the skiff itself to keep them from taking the pet. "They didn't even leave us enough to buy passage anywhere!" Of course, they could still sell the slave and go damn near anywhere, but she had the feeling Riddick would have none of that.

Despite her frustration, Jack had never been so glad to get away from a transport before. The men had been filthy, the women crude and colorless. The ship itself had seemed cobbled together from the very scrap the crew collected.

"What'd you expect, kid? It was a salvage ship. Or would you rather be back on that goddamn eclipse planet? Think you could take out all those monsters yourself?" Riddick banged on the broken down InstaMeal machine, which groaned in protest before spitting a colorless, but doubtlessly highly nutritious, glop onto a protein plate. "Hell of a way to get your own world." He passed it to Jack, who made a face. "Sorry, kid. Thing was still making fake-turkey sandwiches, last time I used it."

Jack just sighed and proceeded to scoop the stuff into her mouth, using two fingers carefully. She had never been able to eat as sloppily as some of those spaceport boys, no matter how hard she'd tried to emulate them.

She started when Imam's hand reached around her to take the next two plates. With Jack's eyes following him, the holy man carried a meal over to the pet, who huddled in one corner of the bare room. Imam's robe was still draped over her shoulders. Crouching down next to the creature, he gently proffered the meal. Jack sniffed and looked away, studying her surroundings instead.

"Spartan" didn't even come close. The quarters consisted of a main area, a sleeping room, and a bathroom. That food machine was the extent of the kitchen.

Jack's last lingering ideas equating outlawry with glamour collapsed when faced with this dump. The ceiling sagged, the walls were pitted, and the ratty floor cover, which had started life as generic carpeting, was now trampled and stained beyond help. Insect carcasses, the leavings of whatever lived in the pitted walls, hugged the floorboards, crunching under Jack's rear when she flopped down to finish what passed for a meal.

The whole place smelled of mildew, urine, and hopelessness.

She stole a glance at Riddick, relaxed against one wall, licking his fingers as though he'd just feasted, then looked past Imam at the pet. _Kat_, she grudgingly reminded herself. _She said her name was Kat. _Jack had to give high marks to whomever had come up with such an original name for the felinoid pet.

What was Riddick going to do with her?

Jack followed Kat's gaze to a bookcase consisting of a steel plate atop a couple of bricks. A handful of books, looking worried and torn under several layers of dust, lay carelessly piled on the makeshift shelf. She glanced quickly away, before Kat could notice her staring, but not before Jack had seen the expression on Kat's face. She recognized that hungry look--she'd seen it often enough, in the eyes of more street rats than she could remember.

Jack gathered up the used paper plates and tossed them in the food machine's recycler, then curled up in one cold corner as Riddick dimmed the already flickering lights. Imam stretched out against another wall, but Kat rose quietly and padded after Riddick into the bedroom.

Jack squeezed her eyes shut, bit her lip, and tried not to cry.

Kat entered the bedroom and closed the door in silence. The king sized bed, the only piece of actual furniture in the flat, waited under a broad window that opened out into the perpetual dark. Riddick was a long shadow reclining beneath that window, his eyes glinting like two stars that had somehow escaped the rectangle of night.

Her first owner had been kind enough, as owners went. He'd gotten regular use out of his pets, of course, but Kat had been kept mostly for display. The second man, though, may as well have been the devil incarnate. His tender ministrations had left her with more than a few well-hidden scars. The third man had been a fool who had died for aspirations overreaching his abilities.

What would this new owner do to her? The borrowed robe fell to the floor, followed by the loincloth. It was, she told herself, a moot question.

She made no pretense of her body's actions. Kat was a pet, Riddick her owner, and neither would need any masks over the arrangement. But when she slid between the sheets, those quicksilver eyes studied her for only a moment. Then they disappeared as Riddick rolled over without so much as a goodnight.

The collar, as cold as fear, tightened around her neck. What had she done wrong? Why didn't he want her? Accustomed to active nights, her muscles stiffened quickly. But her new owner no doubt slept lightly, so she didn't dare even roll over to a more comfortable position.

Twenty-two years of cryosleep made for long nights.

A cold hand shook Kat. "Get up." Riddick pointed to a small closet. "There's some clothes in there."

The apartment was still dark--as dark as the neverending blackness outside--but her body knew it was day. Surprised to find she'd slept after all, Kat rose, carefully not looking at Riddick, and opened the closet. Inside, it was broader than the doors, but a good deal shallower than she'd expected. Several skimpy dresses hung on the rack, their hangars scraping against the back wall. Kat decided she didn't want to know where Riddick had gotten women's clothing from.

Her fur prickled as Riddick's breath crawled over the back of her neck. "I know that collar keeps you from running, Spots." A finger traced a path down her bare back and over one buttock. "And I know all about that behavioral inhibitor. You don't wear it, it wears you. And as long as that collar wears you, you're mine."

Flustered, Kat grabbed a short sundress. By the time she'd pulled it over her head, Riddick was gone.

Jack watched Riddick disappear out the door with Imam, leaving her alone in the tiny apartment. Alone, except for the pet. Riddick's parting shot had been that he was sure the girls would find something to talk about.

Two hours later, neither had exchanged a word. Kat stared out the main window into the darkness, while Jack sat fidgeting against the far wall, wondering what the pet found so fascinating about the night. _Things_ lived in the night--Jack hadn't needed the eclipse to teach her that.

Kat's lightly furred body was covered now in a short blue dress, and Jack distracted herself for a while speculating where the pet could have gotten it from.

"He didn't do anything."

The pet's voice, so startling after the long silence, jolted Jack out of her thoughts. Kat didn't turn from the empty window.

__

He didn't do anything, Jack repeated to herself. Hugging her knees to her chest, she wondered why Kat had sounded so apprehensive. _It would've been pretty nice not to have to worry about _that_, right? _she thought. _ So why would she be nervous about _not_ being... being..._

"They always do something."

She almost jumped out of her skin as Kat spoke again, this time looking back at her. The pet's eyes shone an eerie amber in the darkness, and Jack broke into a sudden, cold sweat. _They always do something._ What would Riddick do? Jack's hand rubbed her stubbled head as an involuntary shudder ran down her back. She pulled the ragged pair of makeshift goggles out of her pocket, stood up, and tossed them into the InstaMeal's reclamation bin.


	4. Night Side

****

IV. Night Side

Kat huddled against the cool glass of the window, trying to calm her stomach. Without her owner nearby, she was even more lost and confused than she was in his presence. But Riddick and the priest didn't return till late in the evening. With an eerily satisfied air about him, Riddick offered to show Jack the "sweet package" he and Imam had acquired. The girl shot Kat a look of trepidation, then left with Riddick. The priest stood quietly by, his eyes locked on Kat.

When they were gone, Kat stood and gazed expectantly at Imam. Maybe the priest would have some way of helping her... But something about this man didn't smell right.

"Mr. Riddick and I have been speaking."

Kat had guessed that, but she made no reply.

"Perhaps it would be best for you to stay with him."

__

Perhaps I have no other choice about it, she thought, but kept that thought to herself. She fingered her collar pointedly instead.

"I have... considered... taking you with me to New Mecca, but..." He spread his hands helplessly. "No priest would own a slave, but no slave could walk freely, even with a priest." Imam's shoulders dropped, and he sighed. "You would be quickly taken, and would very likely find yourself in the company of worse than your present... owner."

Kat blinked away the tears as fast as they appeared. He couldn't do anything for her? Then she wasn't his problem. "I already have some experience with the worse owners."

There was a long silence before Imam finally took Kat's left hand in his own. He traced the tattoo on the inside of her wrist. "Lihari Den. The best pets are manufactured there."

She snatched her hand back, staring at him.

Imam looked past her, avoiding her eyes. "Perhaps you have more in common with the man than you think."

"_Perhaps_," Kat snarled, "a priest wouldn't know a thing about life in a Den." Imam hesitated, and her throat suddenly went dry.

"I... was not always a man of God."

"Where is she, holy man?" Riddick said. "What did you do to her?"

Jack snorted. "What did _he_ do to her? How about what you're doing to her? How about what--"

Riddick's fist cut her off. "Shut your mouth, kid. You don't know what you're talking about."

Imam shoved between them as Jack fell back against the wall, struggling to keep to her feet. "I apologize, Mr. Riddick, for losing your... property. And--" Behind him, Jack swayed on her feet, and Imam continued in a rush. "--as much as I would like her to stay lost, that would simply not be possible, especially not in a place such as this."

"Really," Riddick growled. "I shoulda left you all in that cave. Made my life a helluva lot easier." He turned away and strode to the door.

"Find her," the older man hissed, "before it is too late."

The door slammed for the second time that day, leaving the apartment in a throbbing silence.

Janus had always been one of Riddick's favorite bolt holes. No lights, no cops, no questions. There was at least a token police force, but its members were often no better than the criminals they supposedly protected against.

Making his way out through town wasn't too hard; he kept to the shadows, and those who saw his silhouette stayed well away. But hunting down the pet wasn't easy. Where had a simple slave learned to cover its tracks so well? The night was still, though, and the air calm, and Kat had an unusual sweet-spicy scent that he would recognize anywhere.

Her trail led to the outskirts of town.

Riddick looked back through the shantytown at the edge of the city. He wasn't afraid of the dark--exactly. It simply didn't mean anything anymore. Not since the shine job. But his instincts insisted that the night would never again hold only monsters of the human variety. After all, he'd met up with quite a few monsters on the last planet he'd visited--and only one of them had been human.

He grinned at the memory of Johns' death, but the hairs on the back of his neck still prickled. The dry smell of the air meant the stars were out, although they were too dim for his eyes to distinguish. And Janus had no moons. Something inside him, though, made him scan the sky before going any further into the night.

Though he knew that expecting to find those creatures here was absurd, his instincts disagreed. But he shook the feeling off: _After all, those flying teeth couldn't have evolved on that eclipse planet. Nocturnal beasties in a system with three suns? Not fucking likely._ No, those flying teeth had to have originated from somewhere else, like...

__

Here? Riddick smiled at the thought. He felt too familiar with this part of Janus to let his imagination go any farther.

Turning his back on the town, and the handful of functioning streetlights, he went hunting in earnest.

Jack groaned and slid into a boneless heap on the floor. With a heavy sigh, Imam sat down beside her.

"Why'd she have to run away? And why does Riddick _care_ so much about her running away? Everything was _fine_ until she came along!"

"Hush, now, child." He began wiping the blood from her lip with the fringe of his robe. "It is the collar she wears that holds her to an owner, to Riddick. She could have escaped from either of us. It is to her great credit that she did not simply kill me." He closed his eyes and bowed his head. "My boys, I imagine, would have liked her."

Jack imagined no such thing, but she kept that thought quiet. "Wait a minute. Killed you? But she's a--I mean, she's not a..." She paled at the grave expression that made Imam's face seem carved from stone.

"I must make an apology to you, child..."

The end of the evening found Jack hunched in a corner, as far away from Imam as she could get; but her mind kept straying back to his left wrist, to the tattooed glyph hidden once more beneath his sleeve.

There was no one she could trust anymore.

The outcropping ahead of him, shimmering purple, made a good place for him to wait. To watch. A lithe figure was crouched not far beyond, in a small copse of trees. _Not trees_, he realized. _Big goddamn mushrooms_. He forced silent the nagging voice that said he'd never seen trees like that before--he'd never been out this far before.

The pet was still wearing the short dress from his little collection. _Here, kitty, kitty_. _I'm probably safer than whatever beasties might live out here_. He'd hardly finished the thought when he spotted something moving through the tall grass toward Kat's position.

There were two of them. They looked like some bizarre cross between deer and warthog, with their enormous, quivering ears and ugly, warty snouts. Long whiskers trembled as they continuously tested the air. Riddick saw that the creatures were blind--eyeless--and a chill tiptoed down his spine.

They were a doe and a calf. The mother's flexible snout reached under one of the trees' caps to pull out the meaty underside, while the little one scurried around her, gobbling up what she dropped. Spindly legs looked ready to run at a moment's notice.

Riddick watched, fascinated, as the pet inched forward. He could tell she was stalking the fawn--but would she bite it? Strangle it? Was that small, wiry body strong enough to break its neck?

The next thing he knew, she was down, writhing, her fingers clutching at her neck as the animals fled. Long years of caution kept Riddick frozen in place until his mind caught up with what he was seeing.

Kat's fingers scrabbled at her collar as she struggled for breath. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as her body writhed against the collar's impelling pain. The convulsions had been wracking her since she'd fled, and they were only growing worse.

The collar loosened its grip, and Kat collapsed, gasping. She was so tired. They told stories in the Dens about slaves like her. Slaves who'd run away from their owners, only to be found, months or even years later, their remains still frozen in struggle against their collars.

Kat didn't want to end up like them.

But she couldn't go back. Riddick would kill her, because that was the kind of man he was. The kind of man she'd heard news reports and rumors about, twenty-two years ago, when he'd gone on a killing spree in the Gramercy system. He hadn't done anything to her yet; but she'd seen owners like him--owners who would not so much as touch their pets, then one day snap and kill them.

She couldn't go back. And she couldn't stay out here. So Kat slowly drifted off, waiting for the next round of attacks from her collar to finish her off.

Her inner eyelids were almost closed before she noticed him standing over her. Riddick sank down on his haunches, lips twisted in a half smile, head cocked as he studied her.

__

It wouldn't be so bad, she thought, _if only he'd get on with it._

"Look at you," Riddick said, flicking his fingers over her collar, her ragged, dirty dress. "Can't even look after yourself. You ought to thank me for coming after you."

Kat's throat tightened against her fear as Riddick leaned over her.

"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?"

She licked her lips. "N--no."

He smiled sardonically. "Actually, you ought to thank the holy man. He's the one who suggested I take care of you."

Kat pushed herself up on her elbows. "I suppose he would want me 'taken care of,' wouldn't he?"

Riddick grinned. "Not what you're thinking, Spots. He wanted me to look after you. You know--food and water, shelter, Mommy can I keep it?"

She stared up at him. "Don't let him near me. Please."

He threw his head back in a cruel laugh. "What, you thought just because he carried prayer beads, he'd save you? Ain't that quaint."

Kat chewed on her lip. Though she hadn't actually asked the priest, the thought that he would help her--that he _must_ help her--had crossed her mind more than once. More than a few times. But Riddick had known. Somehow he'd _known _what that priest really was.

"Once a Trainer, always a Trainer, _pet_."

Kat cringed under the glint of unnatural eyes, shrank from the grin that bared all his teeth. Her body began moving as it had been trained to, but her owner only held her down and raked her body with his terrifying gaze.

"What are you waiting for?" she finally cried.

He smiled. "The right time."


	5. Skirting the Edge

****

V. Skirting the Edge

Kat came through the door first.

Looking up from the book she'd retreated into, Jack gave Kat a tentative smile. But the pet barely even glanced at her, fleeing instead into Riddick's bedroom when Imam got to his feet. Jack tried to follow the pet, but the bedroom door slammed in her face.

She stared at her feet a moment, then turned around to find Riddick standing inches away. Trying to slip sideways was useless; he seized her by the upper arms and held her roughly against her struggles. Imam came up behind Riddick, reaching out to pull him away. Riddick shot a look at him. Whatever was in his eyes was enough to make the old priest back off.

"Let... me... _go_!" Jack snarled, thrashing in his grip.

"Listen!" he growled back, and shook her. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, I'll bet you're sorry. You're sorry you came back for me! You're sorry you ever even saw me!"

Riddick dropped his head and cursed. "How can I make it right?"

She gaped at him. "Make it _right_?" She tried to get a knee up, but Riddick was too quick and turned aside, though he didn't loosen his grip. "You can't make anything right! You can't make it so they didn't die, can you?" Jack stopped struggling, but now she was crying. "I'm sorry I ever met you, Riddick, and you can't make that right, either."

"Tell me what to do, then."

Jack spit in his face.

He let go of her, straightened up, and wiped the spittle from his cheek. Then he folded his arms across his broad chest and glared. Behind him, Jack could see Imam stiffen.

"I'd tell you to go fuck yourself, Riddick, but I'm sure you'll take care of _that_ with your little pet." The bruise on Jack's mouth throbbed, telling her she was skirting the edge again. "Tell you what. Why don't you go back to that eclipse planet and kill off every last one of those things? Rid the galaxy of them. I know you're not used to doing good deeds--but hey, it'd be a hell of a way to get your own planet."

Riddick didn't answer that. Instead, he pushed past her and slipped into the bedroom.

Jack let her eyes find Imam's. His expression was grim.

"If he does what you ask, and if he lives," he murmured, "will you then forgive him?"

The pet was in bed, feigning sleep, when Riddick slipped into the room. He ignored her. _How can I make it right?_ he sneered at himself. _Fuck you very much, Carolyn Fry. Go enjoy your own redemption. Leave me the hell out of it._

He almost tore the closet door off its hinges when he opened it. Tossing the clothing and hangers to the floor, he ripped out the thin back wall of the closet. Three crates filled the long-hidden space inside. He checked the contents. One held an assortment of finely crafted, sheathed daggers; the other two, a collection of firearms: handguns, shotguns, even laser rifles. Several hundred rounds of ammunition waited inside a small metal case, along with two dozen loaded shotgun casings. _No color-coded shells for me, Billy._

The three crates weren't enough--not by far. He knew where he could acquire the rest of what he'd need, though. No excess planet-hopping necessary. Imam might be good enough to help him carry all of this. He resealed the lids. Especially if he didn't know what all of this was. His nice, new--_Okay, gently used_--ship would have more than enough cargo room.

He'd named the ship the _Nightfall_. Jack would get a kick out of that.

Another restless night.

Kat rose quietly, slipped on her dress, and glanced at Riddick. What was that joke about young children? They looked so harmless while sleeping. He did, too. Peaceful, as if he'd never known violence.

Even the most illiterate slave had heard Richard B. Riddick's name. Even after her twenty-two years of cryosleep, he was as notorious as ever. But his face was at rest now, showing no trace of his infamy.

Kat crept out of the room.

On any other planet, the sun wouldn't even think about getting up yet. It was early in what passed for morning here, but the small living unit was dark, as usual. Riddick kept it dim for his own comfort, and no one else dared complain. Certainly not Jack or Imam, and not Kat, whose night vision was at least as good as her owner's. Hers was natural, though. _Well, as natural as genetic engineering can be._

She slipped into the larger front room, where Jack and the holy man slept. _Holy man_, she snarled mentally. _He's no better than Riddick--worse, even. At least I _knew_ what Riddick was._

Kat stood in silence in the middle of the room. She glanced at the unguarded front door, but her collar tightened warningly. Two silhouettes lay sleeping on opposite sides of the room. The larger lay in peace, the smaller slept fitfully. _Does a black heart make for an easy night?_

The collar relaxed. She let thoughts of killing the old priest fill her mind. Still the collar remained quiescent.

Kat's nostrils flared. Her claws, itching in anticipation, slipped from their fingertip sheaths.

Behind her, Jack turned over in her sleep. Kat glanced at her, then back at Imam. She found herself close enough to bend over him, close enough to feel his stale, old man breath on her face.

A whimper came from across the room.

Reluctantly, Kat straightened and padded over to the girl, who was kicking fitfully. She sighed, knelt down, and ran her hand over Jack's stubbled head. The girl shot up, gasping and shivering.

Jack stared at Kat with eyes as big as moons. "I... I..." she mumbled, looking around in alarm. "I gotta get outta here!"

She got to her feet, hanging onto the wall for support. Weak-legged and shivering, her arms wrapped about her shoulders, the girl stumbled across the floor. She hit the door, and her hands fumbled around in the dark for the handle.

And then she was gone.

__

Well. Kat stood up, bemused. _That was interesting._ She looked back at the still form of Imam. Two faint glints looked calmly back at her. How long had the priest been awake?

The wind blew in steadily from the east, carrying warm air from the daylit half of Janus. Dust from plains burned raw by an unseen sun floated past; occasional beer cans skudded over the bare ground; old newspapers and filmy bits of dried fungi slunk about like abandoned children.

Jack was just another lost scrap carried along by the wind. A cubbyhole, that was what she wanted. A basement or an abandoned building to squat in for the rest of the evening; maybe longer, if she couldn't beg passage off this world.

A cardboard box, even.

But she'd crept into what had turned out to be a nice neighborhood. As nice a neighborhood as she'd seen in this grubby excuse for a city, anyway--but that wasn't saying much. All the houses looked exactly alike, as if they'd come straight off some giant assembly line: they'd all been built from prefab parts prepared light years and generations away on Earth. She wondered if they all held prefab families, too.

The wind shifted.

Careening in from the southwest, it tumbled and rolled down the middle of the lane, stopping only to whisper its dirty secrets into dusty corners. It winged up to perch on canted rooftops. Old bits of birdsong dangled like so many Mardi Gras beads.

Jack hugged herself against the chill and wished she'd never shaved her head. Leaning against the shingled side of an old garage, she let herself slide down till she was seated on the cold earth. Her feet shifted small dust-devils of dead spores. She sneezed.

Listening with half an ear to the chirping echoes carried on the breeze, Jack studied her hands. They were thick with calluses, but underneath the sweat and grime and chewed-off nails, they were still delicate. She imagined that just one of Riddick's hands would engulf both her own, and then she wondered if those giant hands would be warm or cold.

She sneezed again, then wiped her eyes.

"Come on, Jack," she told herself. "Time to find the spaceport."


	6. Unspoken

****

VI. Unspoken

WS27-J was a weather satellite. It orbited a two-faced planet that had been named Janus by its human colonists. On the dayside, the climate was an even, hellish blaze. Constant convection produced minor sandstorms here and there, but the blistering sunlight beat them down again quickly. The nightside was where things became interesting. Two minor seas, countless lakes, and a system of rivers running through numerous mountain ranges, combined with ever-flowing air currents bringing warmth from the dayside, made for weather systems human minds had barely begun to comprehend.

Like its brother satellites, WS27-J was only a machine, but it got what little electronic satisfaction it could out of doing its job. Unlike its brother satellites, WS27-J was a shell program. Few humans on Janus--none of them meteorologists--knew that inside its electronic brain existed another program entirely.

MS9-J was politely called a weather satellite. It did not care that its shell was preoccupied with air currents and cloud formations. It obeyed meteorological orders from the planet below only because its military masters had programmed it to do so. MS9-J watched, not for intriguing weather patterns, but for unnatural heat signatures outside human territory.

To date, there had been only one, and that had been ruled a software error.

A machine does not get bored. But MS9-J had just enough artificial curiosity to go beyond simple human orders from simple human minds. There were no heat signatures in the wastes of the nightside. There was, however, a series of human cities that circled the day/night terminus like a string of infrared pearls. In a mind coded to search for unnatural heat, this produced the binary equivalent of fascination. So while most of its programming was occupied with fruitless mapping and remapping, a small part of MS9-J watched the cities below it like a cat watching a bird on the other side of a window.

Its orbit now took it over a small, unremarkable town, within which huddled a small, unremarkable flat. If MS9-J had cared to peer closer, it would have seen two infrared figures sitting on opposite sides of the flat's main room.

Kat stared at Imam. Imam stared at Kat. Neither spoke. After some time, the priest rose, crossed the room, and picked up a book from the shelf. He blew dust from the cover, coughed twice, and walked back to his corner. With a nudge to the lights, he opened the book and began silently reading.

Jack crouched on a back street that could have belonged on any number of marginal worlds. She had the hard-won instincts of a spacer brat, instincts that said the 'port was less than an hour away by a quick walk.

The problem was, her legs wouldn't move.

__

Most every living planet you've been on has birds, dammit! she lectured herself. _And they all sing, too!_ The whistles and hoots echoing from outside the fringes of town had Jack cowering in a small alley, her arms thrown over her head, frozen like a prey animal. The sounds weren't the same as the crazed whalesong of those flying teeth, but still...

She thought of a parakeet she'd once owned, and shuddered.

Jack had seen birds with feathers, birds with fur, birds with scales, and birds that might as well have coalesced from the daylight itself. She'd seen birds with two wings and four, birds that had no wings at all, but swam through the air all the same. But what kind of bird would live on a world with no sun to sing to?

"You're a stupid idiot, you know that?" She rose to her feet shakily. "You can't even take care of yourself. Can't even walk a few measly blocks." Under her string of verbal abuse, her legs started moving. The more and louder she cursed herself, the stronger she became, until she was almost running.

Her legs took her away from the spaceport, back the way she'd come. She didn't argue with them.

Jack opened the door on a confusing scene.

Kat sat in the corner, staring across the room with a naked expression of hunger on her face. As Jack walked in, she found Imam sitting on the other side of the room, legs crossed beneath him, a book open on his lap. His lips moved soundlessly.

__

Doesn't he know? Jack wondered. _Doesn't he know she can't--oh. Of course he knows._ Imam, she thought, was displaying a remarkable lack of tact; but Jack suddenly realized there was something else to worry about.

"Where's Riddick?"

Imam set the book down with a sigh. "He is preparing the ship for launch."

"What? He was gonna leave without me?"

"He doesn't own you." That was Kat. "You can leave whenever you like. He would have let you go."

Jack thought of how scared she'd been out there, huddled close to that alley wall. _He would have let me go._ She remembered the terror of being trapped in that cave, just her and Imam and Carolyn against all the things that were hunting them. _He would have let me go._

He would have let me go.

"Who the hell says I _want_ him to let me go?" Jack snarled.

Getting to the spaceport wouldn't be easy, not with a slave in tow. It was just as Riddick had said: What would a priest or a teenager be doing with a sex slave? So Imam had excused himself to the bathroom to rearrange his robes, leaving Jack and Kat to wait through another awkward silence.

Jack looked at the book Imam had left on the floor. _The Second Diaspora_. It was a history, she supposed. Dry, boring, and probably almost unreadable. She picked it up. The pages rustled through her fingers, and Jack came to a startled understanding of what Imam had been doing.

By the time the priest returned to the room, Kat had edged her way next to Jack. The slave was stumbling through a few words at a time, revealing that she knew at least the basics of reading. "...after the disap... disappearance of the... Ch... Chi..."

"The _Chivalrous_," Jack supplied. She glanced up at the sound of Imam's footsteps.

A strange, dark-skinned man loomed over her. He wore long, loose leggings and a sleeveless, open mantle that had once been concealed under flowing robes. Bare arms, chest, and head gleamed in the low light. Around his waist was belted what could have been a priest's stole--if it hadn't been worn by what now looked like a mad djinn.

"You, uh... you look good," was all Jack could say.

He smiled, and the mad djinn disappeared. "Come. Mr. Riddick is waiting for us," Imam said. "He asked that we wait five hours. If you did not return by then, why..." He left the rest unspoken.


	7. New Mecca

****

VII. New Mecca

The _Nightfall_ was waiting for them at the spaceport, already prepped for flight. Jack had seen the ship earlier, but somehow it managed to look smaller now. And she'd forgotten what an ugly shade of yellow it was.

Flickering running lights barely illuminated the cracked and pitted tarmac. The hatch hummed open. Seeing that Riddick wasn't waiting directly inside, Jack breathed a sigh of relief and, hefting the makeshift bag of Imam's discarded robes over her shoulder, followed the priest and the slave into the ship.

She shouldn't have worried about avoiding him. Riddick was as careful with her as she was with him. They had come to an agreement, of sorts. Jack would not be accompanying Riddick any further; instead, Imam would take her under his proverbial wing.

A delicate silence had woven itself between the convict and the thirteen-year-old girl. When they encountered each other, they walked on eggshells, saying as little as possible. But Jack could still sense him around. His presence pervaded the entire ship. When she ate, when she showered, when she jogged around the deck. Even in bed, when she knew he was nowhere near, she could still feel his eyes on her.

Jack caught herself wondering, more than once, what those eyes had looked like before the shine job.

After two days of awkward moments, she finally took to hiding in her room. She came out only to use the head or to sneak meals from the tiny galley. So it was with some surprise when she looked up from staring at the bulkhead next to her bed (having already established that there were seventy-two scratches, twelve pits, and one small warp in the metal wall) to find Kat swaying nervously from foot to foot in the doorway.

"Did you... I mean, are you okay?" Jack asked.

Kat shrugged wordlessly. Jack followed the slave's gaze down to her hands, to the book those hands were squeezing and twisting. The pet took a couple steps into the room, held out the book, and blurted, "Teach me some more."

They had been in transit for three weeks. A tentative friendship had sprouted between the girl and the pet, and Jack had found that Kat had a thirst for learning that matched her own sudden thirst to teach. She didn't understand how a woman nearly twice her own age could have made her feel so overwhelmingly protective.

At the abrupt knock on Jack's door, both looked up from the well-read book they were hunched over. The door slid open, revealing Imam's patient form.

He glanced at Kat, then his eyes slid over to Jack. "May I speak with you?"

"Uh..." Jack stood up as Kat quietly left the room. "Sure, I guess."

Lacking any other seat in the small cabin, Imam gingerly took Kat's place next to Jack on the bunk. Jack dropped back down next to him, cross-legged.

"It was not my impression that New Mecca was your original destination. Have you considered what you will do with yourself when we arrive?"

Jack was silent as she tried to come up with something to tell him.

"I only ask this because you will be taking the place of Ali and his brothers."

__

Ouch. "I guess I've kinda painted myself into a corner, huh?" She shifted, wrapping her arms around her knees. "I... I don't know what the he--um, what I ever expected out of Riddick. I mean, aside from saving me. Saving us."

She looked up hesitantly to see Imam wearing a not-quite-frowning expression. "I thought maybe he'd take me along," she continued, "afterwards. But I don't think I like him quite as much, now that I know him better." She rubbed her jaw, where the painful bruise had begun to dull, and wondered why that last statement had tasted so much like a lie.

"Most of what I know of human nature, I learned before I was called. I will tell you now that, if you decide not to accompany me on hajj, Riddick would be most pleased to have you stay with him." At Jack's small smile, Imam seemed to choose his next words with care. "But I will also tell you that I would not trust him not to hurt you again."

Jack's hand dropped from her jaw. "What about Kat?" She was almost, but not quite, surprised to find no hint of her earlier jealousy in her question. "I don't think Riddick would be too happy if she went with us."

"Kat does not know it yet, but she is perfectly capable of defending herself from him." If she didn't know the holy man better--_But how well _do _I really know him?_--she would have thought he was wearing a foxy look on his normally grave face.

"You really think he'd ever let her get away with something?"

Imam folded his hands in his lap, staring at them as if he expected a miracle to come from them. "To be honest, no. I do not know whether to hope for her or fear for her. She has troubled my prayers since we found her."

Pressed against the small porthole in her cabin, Jack studied the planet they now orbited. Ordinary size, ordinary shape, ordinary colors of blue, green, and brown. She didn't know what to expect when they docked. Minarets and mullahs and never-ending calls to prayer? Hookahs and burqas and signs proclaiming, "Circumcise your wife here"?

Imam had promised her, sworn on his god and his life, that she'd be safe with him. She peeked behind her, feeling as though someone was watching her; but there was no one there, of course. Riddick had never made any such promise.

When she turned back, their orbit had altered slightly. Jack gasped as a thin planetary ring swung into view. What would it look like from the surface? Would it glimmer in the morning? She wiped her eyes with an impatient hand. Or would it be too ethereal to be seen during the day? The vision of a band of silver arcing over the night sky appeared in her mind. She forced herself to smile at it.

Jack stepped down from the porthole, curled up on the bunk, and wrapped herself in the thin blanket. _It'll be beautiful_, she told herself. She scrubbed angrily at the tears that insisted on falling, telling herself how stupid she was for ever daring to have thought of anyone like that. _I bet it'll be even more amazing than... than..._ The image of the planetary ring faded away when two quicksilver glints appeared in her mind's eye.

__

Yeah. Even more amazing than that.

Outside the spaceport, a huge bazaar stretched for what seemed like miles. Bolts of cloth and jars of spices, jewelry and hanging rugs, clothing, pottery, and singsong voices all clamored for attention. There were small temples and shrines everywhere, full of worshippers and tourists.

Wavering like a mirage, the Mosque was so far away Jack could barely see it, even atop the small mountain it crowned. But the sunlight reflecting from its golden domes was visible for miles. Shading her eyes, she squinted into the distance. Lines of pilgrims stretched from the slopes below the huge temple all the way back to the road beneath her very feet. Riddick and Kat had accompanied Imam and Jack to the edge of town, but stopped at the gate that barred their way. Only true pilgrims were allowed to pass. The guards posted there would not allow anyone back through by that route.

Only true pilgrims would want to go any further.

Imam's hand fell on Jack's shoulder before her feet took her too far. He bowed formally to Riddick and then to Kat.

The slave gave the ex-trainer a hesitant smile. "You have to walk all the way there?"

"There are many roads to the Mosque," Imam answered. "The one I travel is the path of repentance. I cannot take it under any power but my own."

__

There's only one road that I can see, Jack thought, but Kat nodded as though she knew what Imam was talking about.

"I guess I'll miss you, Jack," Kat said. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

Jack nodded and hugged the pet, then whispered something to her so that Riddick wouldn't hear. But it brought a smile to Kat's face. "Count on it," Kat mumured back.

Riddick edged toward her. "Jack..." The goggles hid his eyes, so she thought instead of a shimmering arc splitting the night sky.

"I know, Riddick. Me, too."

Some part of her mind knew her lower lip was quivering, but she ignored it. Forgetting all about the path up the mountain, she threw herself into his arms. Hands that shouldn't have known how to hug enfolded her in a momentary embrace. Just long enough for her to know, to answer a question from a dark, lonely street.

__

Riddick's hands are warm.


	8. The Sparrow

****

VIII. The Sparrow

I had never seen a real, live sparrow before. It was my first stint in juvie, and I was belligerently thirteen.

My section's eating the usual slop they call lunch, when out of nowhere, this puny brown _thing_ comes whizzing through the mess hall. It flies frantically from one side to the other, little wings whirring like an over-wound toy, then hits one wall and just--drops. The drone of bored conversation never falters. No one seems to notice, or care.

At the bell, we all line up like the obedient boys we pretend to be, to file back through the hall to the dorms. The sparrow's lying quiet on the tiles next to the door. I kneel down, pretending to tie my shoe, and I grab it. And this tiny, warm body--it quivers in my hand all the way back to my room.

When my roommate Teo asks me what I'm going to do with the bird, I hit him. Then I set the sparrow down on my cot as gently as I can. Like any good juvie resident, I've got some food stashed away. An apple and an old, stale bun. I set them next to it, but the bird doesn't move; it just lies there, panting, on the sheet. I ladle a handful of water from the sink, but it doesn't drink, either.

I went to sleep that night cupping it in my hand to keep it warm. When I woke up, it was dead.

I flushed it down the toilet. When Teo asked me why, I hit him again.

__

A whole fucking planet full of goddamn holy rollers, Riddick thought. The heat was suffocating, and the bodies pressed around him didn't help. His credit chip was tucked safely away from the thieving hands that even this pilgrim planet would undoubtedly have, but he still didn't feel safe. He may have looked at first glance like nothing more than a tourist, but there was the pet to worry about. Imam had thrown a scarf and shawl over her as soon as he could, but a good look would tell anyone exactly what she was.

They hadn't gone far when Riddick felt Kat jerk away behind him.

He glared over his shoulder to tell the pet to keep up--just in time to see someone shove her into an alleyway. Bodies pushed at him from all sides as he shoved his way savagely through, trying to get at her. _Goddamn it, don't these people have a concept of personal fucking space?_

He shouldered three people violently aside before the rest of the mob moved out of his way. Sensing scores of eyes on his back, Riddick knew they would most definitely not be staying here any longer than necessary. Someone might decide to tail them, and he knew his own mug was far from forgettable.

Not knowing what to expect, he stepped carefully around the corner into the alley. There was Kat, hastily retying the scarf over her head. He caught her from behind, holding her wrists tight enough to feel them pop.

"Going somewhere?"

She stiffened, and he saw a minute smear of blood tracing her jaw at the edge of the scarf. "Can we please just get out of here?" she whispered. There was blood on her fingertips, too. She was trembling.

Riddick cast a long look at Kat, then at the body stuffed artlessly under a pile of rubbish in the alleyway, then nodded.

Sitting stiffly in the copilot's seat while Riddick made a few calculations, Kat slowly made her way through one of the books Riddick had brought from Janus. They had left New Mecca two days behind them, and he had yet to break the silence. She'd never thought the rustle of a turning page could be so loud.

"You want to tell me what happened back there?"

Kat dropped her book when she heard Riddick's voice. It was a low rumble, almost too low to understand, and it seemed to come from everywhere at once. From the deck under her feet, from the pages in the book, from the canned air the old ship recycled endlessly.

The heat of the collar intensified as it pressed close around her neck. She stared down at her hands, unable to look at him. She knew what she'd see, anyway--had seen it often enough already. All her previous owners had known what they were buying; had simply resold her when she became more trouble than she was worth. But Riddick had fallen into her ownership, and she hadn't told him anything. There would be no mere passing her off to someone else, not this time.

"Cat got your tongue, Spots? What the hell happened?" She fisted her hands, unable to look him in the eye. "Someone grabbed themselves a little pet, is that it?" Riddick growled.

Kat nodded. She could still smell the hashish on the strange man's hands, could still feel those hands ripping off her scarf. He'd smiled greedily--an ugly, toothless grin--when he'd seen her spotted hair.

"So how'd the little pet come out of that alleyway with blood on her hands?"

"I..."

He rose, pulling her up by her hair to face him. Tears flooded her eyes. "Where'd that body under that trash heap come from? I know fresh death when I see it." She moaned when he shook her, shutting her eyes against the two cold, narrowed glints that seemed sharp enough to cut. He shook her again. "Come to think of it," he drawled, "how the hell did a _pet_ wind up in the only coffin on that skiff?"

Kat closed her eyes and wished she were still back in the skiff, still safely in stasis. She swallowed the fear in her throat. It made a cold lump in her stomach.

"You've been holding out on me, _pet_." He shook her again.

"Stop! Please!" She gave him her hand, claws extended. Drops of yellowish fluid glistened at the tips. "I wasn't made as a plaything."

"What is this?" Riddick growled, staring at her fingertips.

"V-venom. I was supposed to be a bodyguard, but the buyer reneged. There's a market for toys like me, though. Dangerous enough to excite, but safely _collared_." She spat the last word out bitterly.

When she continued, it was in a quieter voice. "My last owner was the head geologist. He and the last two members of the team asked me... they asked me to... It was quicker and easier than what the monsters offered." She gave a short laugh. "That expedition was supposed to pay for me."

"You expect me to believe that you got from the coring room to the skiff by yourself?"

"No." She picked up her courage and looked him in the eye; whatever was there, it wasn't what she'd expected.

"You did, didn't you. Probably killed a few of the fuckers on the way, too."

"Only one of the big ones," she replied softly. "What are you going to do to me?"

Riddick grinned at her, showing all his teeth. "I told you before, Spots. I like a woman who can take care of herself."

He hadn't hit her.

He hadn't chained her.

He hadn't so much as laid a finger on her for the rest of the evening.

Kat watched Riddick's chest rise and fall slowly. The bed creaked as she hesitated toward him. _You'll always be a slave, _he'd said.She let her hand drop back to her side. _As long as that collar wears you, you're mine._ But if she was his, then why had he hardly even touched her? His hunger was evident, but he slept soundly. He played with his own desire as if it were a living thing. She had seen young children pulling the wings off flies, just to see what would happen; she'd never seen a fly dismember itself.

For the first time, she wondered what it would be like if she wasn't his. What would her neck feel like with no collar? Would she still lie awake at night, waiting for him to take her?

Would she still be afraid, if he did?


	9. Babylon

****

IX. Babylon

Riddick was stretched out in the cockpit, his feet crossed over the top of the console. Outside, the nothingness continued by. Kat edged into the copilot's seat.

"Is there anything else for me to wear?"

One sardonic eyebrow cocked. "What's wrong with what you've got on?"

Kat wrinkled her nose. Her dress was creased and had been shed upon; it stank of sweat and resignation. She tried to glare at Riddick, but when his silver gaze met her own, her eyes dropped. "Do you intend for me to walk around looking like a second-hand toy?" she murmured.

"You are a second-hand toy." Riddick folded his hands behind his head. "Don't worry. We're on our way to Babylon. I'll pick you up a little something there."

"What's on Babylon?"

He was silent for a long moment.

Then, uncrossing and recrossing his feet: "By the way, what did Jack say to you?"

She eyed him uncomfortably as he gazed out into the void. "She asked me to take care of you."

An eyebrow twitched. The quirk of his lips was barely visible.

"So what's on Babylon?"

His only answer was to close his eyes and fall into a light doze.

Watching him, Kat couldn't decide whether his slumber was real or faked. She sighed, tiptoed out of the cockpit, and headed back to curl up in her owner's empty bed.

The scents and sounds of the market on Babylon were much like those of New Mecca, but there the similarity ended. Raggedy, dirty children sat on street corners, begging loose credits from the tourists who walked about in a colorful variety of garb--or in some cases, lack of it. Tattoos and body paint showed in abundance, and hair was styled and dyed garishly. Animals both familiar and strange were towed on leashes; pets were, too.

Kat tripped on a crack in the cement walkway, earning a curse from her owner, who shot a sidelong look at her. "Don't make trouble, Spots. This ain't the place to attract attention."

Riddick led the way into a badly lit clothing shop. A woman wearing a clerk's vest met them with a startled nod for Riddick and an appraising leer for Kat. Twenty minutes later, Kat had been outfitted, with the clerk's fingers wandering far more than necessary, in garishly dyed reptile hide. The short blue dress had vanished somewhere in the process. A pair of gauntlets, each complete with a brace of stilettos, completed the arrangement.

"I don't need the stilettos," she complained, unsheathing her talons.

"They draw attention away from your... ah... real talents." Riddick winked at the clerk, who gave an appreciative titter. Then he shot Kat a cold, warning glare, and she looked down.

She stifled the urge to scratch beneath her collar.

__

This ain't the place to attract attention, he had said. She glanced sideways at Riddick's bald pate and gleaming muscles, then back down at the ridiculous purple scales strategically decorating her body. _I suppose we fit in better now...._

"Would you care to add a few accessories to your purchase?" the clerk inquired with what would have been courtesy, but for the eyes Kat could feel raking up and down her figure. At Riddick's mutter of assent, she led them to a glass case showing an intimidating assortment that included collars, shock prods, and wrist restraints.

Kat was half relieved, half dismayed when Riddick picked out only a stainless steel chain. With an obsequious compliment for his choice, the woman palmed the credits Riddick passed to her, handing him a receipt chip in return. Ogling Kat one last time, she bustled off to see to the next customer.

Riddick clipped the chain to Kat's collar. "Don't want you getting lost again," he grunted. At his cursory tug, she gritted her teeth and followed him back out into the street.

Walking through the spaceport bazaar into the city proper, they passed a run-down building, and she read "The Other Side" on a battered sign that showed a collar and chain. Her nose wrinkled in distaste at the smell of the kennel.

Before long, though, another odor intruded--one that made her gag and clutch at her new leash in instinctive terror, moaning as Riddick fairly dragged her down the walk toward a fenced and barbed-wired compound. The windowless gray walls reflected the washed out sky above them; the grounds were strewn with dirty gravel.

A cheerfully colored building fronted it all. "Babylon's Premium Pets," the facing announced. Further off, a chimney vomited out oily black smoke.

Kat's legs froze. She cast back to the clothing store, to the ship, back through Janus and the rescue. What had she done? Was Riddick that unsatisfied with her? He had never used her, had barely touched her, had spoken to her only a handful of times--and here he was, bringing her in to be destroyed?

Then she knew. It was her abilities. He hadn't known what she was, and she hadn't volunteered any more than she'd had to. She flashed back to what she'd said to Imam--_I already have experience with the worse owners_--and then her thoughts dissolved in panic.

Her skin prickled as though it already felt the flames. Clawed feet scrabbled over the concrete.

Riddick stopped, clenching his fists; his shoulders rippled. He turned around with a grimace and cuffed her savagely.


	10. The Other Side

****

X. **The Other Side**

He had to lift her bodily from the ground. Kat's eyes had rolled back in her head, and her breath came in short, sharp pants. Riddick slapped her once, twice, before she came to.

"You're fucking useless," he hissed. "Now I gotta shell out extra just to have you taken care of."

Kat spat at him. "No!" Her claws came out then, but Riddick was faster. One foot swept the pet's legs out from under her. She landed on her back with a thud that sent the breath whooshing from her lungs. Riddick watched as she lay stunned for several seconds. His eyes narrowed as the collar visibly tightened around her neck.

Hauling her to her feet again, he grunted, "Are you done?"

She wouldn't meet his eyes, but her lips moved in a soundless, "Yes."

"Then let's go. We passed a kennel on the way." He put action to words and gave a sharp tug on her leash.

She stumbled after him. "A kennel...?"

Riddick glared at her through his dark goggles. "I have business. And since you seem incapable of so much as walking by a single goddamn den, now I gotta stash you somewhere." Trying to ignore the curious onlookers, he gave another yank on the leash.

The chain jingled as it whipped and tugged on the collar. The collar bit through fur and scraped against raw skin.

Tears burned in Kat's eyes. She hurried to keep up, wishing Riddick would stop the brutal tugging. Wishing she could watch anything other than her feet as her owner hauled her through the crowds. Then he stopped, and she looked up.

The Other Side Kennel. A collar and chain on an old, rusty sign.

The kennel was as badly lit as the clothing shop had been. The floor was sticky and smelly under Kat's feet, but the man who greeted them looked at her dispassionately, rather than raping her with his eyes the way the clothing store clerk had.

As Riddick spoke with the kennel master, Kat looked around. Behind a desk, through a door left ajar, Kat saw the stable. Chain-link pens lined a broad hallway. The low drone of pets chattering among themselves drifted through the doorway. On the wall beside the door hung a framed picture of a distinguished-looking older man with dusky skin and steel gray hair. An old bronze placard was engraved with a tiny name.

Beneath the picture was another frame, this one holding a sign that read, "We Dispose of Unwanted Pets."

"C'mon, kitty, in ya go." It was the kennel master speaking. She turned back around, but Riddick had already left. They had concluded their business, it seemed, while Kat had been staring around.

The kennel master--"Justus," a tag sewn to his shirt pocket announced--took her by the leash and led her into the pens. In his other hand he held a shock prod. Kat shrank away from it, but "Justus" didn't seem to notice. There was very little smell in the stable, oddly enough. _Or else_, she thought, _it's just very easy to get used to._

With the kennel master leading, Kat walked down the straw-strewn hallway, her shoulders hunched. She stared at her feet, afraid to even look at any of the cages' occupants. The other pets fell silent for a few moments, but when her erstwhile keeper stopped to open an empty pen, the buzz of conversation resumed.

A gentle push from the man, and Kat stepped gingerly into the pen. She watched as the chain link door locked electronically, but then the shock prod swinging from the loop about the kennel master's wrist caught her eye.

The thing was turned off.

She stared at the kennel master. He gave her a wink and a smile, then left.

The boy huddled in his pen, sniffling quietly, trying not to look at the black ribbon tied to the door. If he didn't see it, then it didn't mean anything, right? It didn't mean his owner didn't want him anymore. It didn't mean that he'd be nothing more than a smear of smoke in a few short hours.

"Hey, kid," a high-pitched, but rough voice said. The boy looked to his left. A short-statured man--a eunuch--no more than four feet tall and clothed only in long, golden fur, gave him a smile.

"What's your name?"

"David."

"Rough life, ain't it, David?" Harvey said with a gentle smile.

David nodded somberly.

The door at the end of the hallway opened, and a human boy came running in. "Harvey!" he yelled, and a woman that David supposed was the boy's mother trotted in after him, followed by the kennel master.

The short, golden-furred man stood up and performed a ridiculous dance of jumps and wiggles. "Petey here!" he said in a slow-witted voice. "Petey come for good Harvey! Harvey be good for Petey!"

As the kennel master unlocked his pen, "Harvey" gave David a sad little smile, before leaving with his owners.

David lay his head down on his arms again.

The bronze-scaled woman in the pen on his right gave him a cold smile. "Pretty little boy. Don't you worry, pretty little boy. Soon, you'll be in a better place. A place where there's no owners. Where there's no dirty men doing dirty things to you." The pet stared at the black ribbon on her own cell door and grinned, showing a mouth full of fangs. "We'll go to that better place together, you and I." Icy blue eyes lit on the boy again, and the grin widened.

Turning his back to her, David curled into a ball.

Kat wanted to yell at the reptilian woman, to scream at her to stop tormenting the boy, but her tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth. And her throat was dry, so dry. She couldn't stop staring at the delicate, doe-eyed boy. Or at the strips of black cloth tied to the two pen doors.

Standing up didn't help. The cell was too small to pace in. Lying down, she couldn't even stretch out. The only thing to do was sit with her back against the brick wall behind her and try not to see anything. Try not to watch the boy across from her shivering and crying. She closed her eyes and saw a black ribbon tied to her own pen's door. Her eyes snapped open again.

The bronze-scaled woman with the icy blue stare gave her a slow smile. "You want my ribbon?"

Kat blinked, then shook her head.

"Take it. You'll go to a better place."

Kat shook her head again and squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to swallow, but her tongue felt hot and swollen.

"A pity," the woman's voice said. "No one ever wants my ribbon."

With black ribbons flapping in her mind's eye, Kat fell asleep to dreams of smoke rising into a cold, empty sky. Somewhere, the scaled woman's voice said, "Justice. Justus. Just us."

When she woke up, the boy and the woman were both gone.


	11. The Path of Repentance

****

XI. The Path of Repentance

__

My Friend,

No doubt you remember my three young charges--Ali, Hassan, and Suleiman--who were originally accompanying me to New Mecca. I recently spoke with their father, Sheik Abdullah. His gratitude for your tireless efforts to save the boys was overwhelming. He has sworn to provide you with both legal and physical protection. Although his family home is in Saudi Arabia, he offers the sanctuary of his estates on Daedalus II, in thanks. The young one and I will meet you there.

Salaam,

Imam Abu al-Walid

The message was waiting for them in the ship's computer. Riddick hadn't opened it till he'd run it through countless scrubbers and filters, and even then he'd been tensed up like some sort of reptile waiting to strike. Like that scaled woman.

Riddick had come for Kat late at night, when both of Babylon's moons were close to setting. The kennel had been only a few minutes from closing, but she had the impression that business hours were the last thing on her owner's mind.

Kat leaned next to Riddick, her head cocked to one side, lips moving soundlessly as she muddled through the final words.

"That--it's not from Imam," she said.

Riddick looked sideways at her. "Really. I hadn't noticed."

His sarcasm went over Kat's head. "Sheik Abdullah... he wouldn't know gratitude if it slapped him. And his 'estates' on Daedalus II, they're really just a collection of private Dens."

"So you know this character?" He turned to face her. "You've been around quite a bit, Spots."

Kat swallowed hard. "...He was my second owner. My first owner, his half brother, 'loaned' me to the Sheik with instructions to kill him." She looked down at her hands, and fisted them to bury the claws in her palms. "That's what I'd been originally made for, after all."

She glanced up at her owner, who was watching her with almost predatory interest, and shrank away. "Look, maybe you can kill without looking back, but I'm not like you! I'm not... not..."

"Not what?" Riddick growled.

Kat's eyes stung. "I'm a pet," she whispered. "Just a pet."

Riddick leaned in close to her, so close his breath brushed past her cheek and against her ear. One large hand slipped between her legs. "So he's the one that did this to you?"

Kat shivered at his touch as it awakened the remembered agony of those tiny white-hot blades, cutting and cauterizing, and she tried not to flinch away.

"No wonder no one wants you anymore," Riddick sneered.

Kat's mouth fell open. She shoved his hand away, bolted for the stateroom, and locked the door behind her.

Riddick was angry again. But at least his cold fury wasn't directed at Kat this time. Periodically, he would take the lift to the cargo deck. She could hear him beating on the wall below.

Someone had known about their little spontaneous family. Someone had followed them to New Mecca, or had been waiting for them there. Someone had seen Jack with Imam, had concocted that fake message--or more likely, intercepted a real one and altered it.

Riddick had set course back to New Mecca with all speed, but it still took five days before the _Nightfall_ docked there again. Kat refused to exit the ship. Fortunately, Riddick agreed that the pet would only be an inconvenience on his hunt for Jack and Imam, and he left her alone on the ship with an admonishment to stay put.

The whole situation frightened and confused Kat, who was just beginning to realize the implications of belonging to an escaped convict. What would happen to her if--when--he was caught? She'd heard horror stories of the questioning they put pets through, pets who had belonged to criminals like Riddick, who were likely to know more about their owners than the owners ever realized.

Criminals like Riddick.

What was he hiding in the cargo hold?

Kat brought the lights up full in the hold. Racks. Aisles and aisles of racks. And on the racks, weapons. She found herself unsurprised. Rifles, both energy and projectile; shotguns, handguns, and boxes upon boxes of ammunition; daggers, knives, bayonets for some of the rifles. A sudden image of Riddick pushing a shopping cart around Babylon brought a short-lived smile to her face.

Then she came to the crates of explosives. She didn't understand the letters and numbers stenciled on the cases, but the designs of dynamite and fireballs told her what lay inside. A chill shook her. If Riddick was caught while running this much weaponry, Kat was sure the authorities would try to take information out of her own hide.

The final third of the space in the hold was dedicated to lights and generators. Flashlights, floodlights, halogen beams, even remote, free-floating light globes; batteries of all sizes, power cables, generators--

"Looking for something?"

Kat whirled. He was standing next to the lift, goggles fastened over his eyes. She'd been so intent on her investigation that she hadn't heard the lift going up or coming back down.

"Lights to dim." Riddick peeled off his goggles as the darkness fell. "Haven't you ever heard that curiosity killed the cat?"


	12. Old Friends

****

XII. Old Friends

She stood there, waiting for him to kill her. He could see it in the set of her jaw, the curious absence of fear in her eyes. He watched in fascination as her collar tightened, then released; tightened, released again. He'd never seen a behavioral inhibitor do that before. He had never felt his own throat tightening and releasing like that, either.

This was something new.

Riddick could reach his hands out, could take and grasp hold of this new thing; but it had no shape. He felt his skull bursting with something larger than the entire ship; but he couldn't name it. So he jerked his head toward the lift, and Kat padded past. The lift hummed up, and Kat vanished.

For the first time in years, Riddick thought of his old roommate from juvie; the hope that Teo was alive, and someplace safe, surprised him. His eyes glinted over the hold full of destruction; his mind supplied a picture of Jack, secure and happy, and he hoped it was so. He thought of Imam, too, and even found himself hoping for the holy man's survival in this unholy universe.

With his head near to splitting from this new thing, Riddick called the lift back down and boarded. It smelled like Kat, and quite suddenly, he thought of a sparrow.

__

He didn't kill me. Kat stood motionless in the hatchway to Riddick's stateroom. She stared at the mussed blankets, the bare metal bulkheads. _He didn't even hurt me._

Kat stepped into the stateroom. She picked up the blue dress from the middle of the floor, the book she was slowly making her way through from beside the bunk, and an extra pillow. She looked into what had been Jack's quarters. No. Kat didn't belong in there.

Crossing the hallway, Kat entered Imam's deserted room, where she stowed her borrowed belongings. Down the passage, she could hear the door to Riddick's quarters close quietly. Then she shut the hatch inside her new quarters.

Yes, she could sleep here. The previous occupant had once been a trainer of pets, but he had turned his back on that past. If he could have changed--who could say that she would always be trapped in the life she had always known?

The very idea--she could barely wrap her mind around it--was something new.

What was it? If she held this new thing, it would be so small as to fit in the palm of her hand. So infinitesimal she would need a microscope to see it. She couldn't hold it, though, nor could she see it; but she thought that if she was somehow able to take out her heart and open it up, there would be a tiny, faraway star shining from deep inside.

Riddick's quarters on Janus were just as bare as before. Just as dark as before, too. No sign of either Imam or Jack, except for a note left nailed to the inside of the front door. The condition of the paper said it had been there for some time.

__

Riddick--

Come out to the grove of mushroom trees a few kilometers to the west of town, and bring Kat. Some old friends will meet you there.

Love,

Jack

They didn't bother to lock the door behind them.

The trees were different. Kat couldn't place how, but they didn't look the same. Something was not right with this. Her skin began to prickle, the fur at the back of her neck standing on end.

Riddick stalked past her, his hand hovering close to the dagger at his side. "Jack?" his rough voice called. "Jack? Imam?"

A low moan started, so low Kat could barely hear it at first. The note traveled upward, ending sharply in a screech.

"Fuck!" Riddick yelled, drawing his dagger. Then the whoops, clicks, and shrieks began, the air suddenly crowded with leathery wings. Somewhere in the maelstrom, Kat saw Riddick's blade knocked from his hand. She screamed.

Seven pairs of wings stilled, as seven creatures alit in a tight circle around their prey. Kat huddled back-to-back against Riddick, gasping. The creature closest rose up, balancing on its split, twitching tail. Talons spread, revealing the shooting spines. Its hammer head swayed in time to its low clicking. Needle teeth snapped together in a demented parody of a grin.

"Fuck this," Riddick growled.

Some long-dormant part of Kat's mind, behaviors she could barely remember, told her what Riddick would do. That he would die here. So she had to make sure he didn't--she owed that much to Jack, at least.

The monster was dead before it hit the ground. But none of the other creatures stirred, other than their hypnotically swaying heads. Kat's claws ached.

"Why don't they _do_ something?" She stared owlishly at the circle of monsters, then murmured, "They always do something."

It took her a moment to realize that Riddick was laughing. "You know, Spots, this is the first time I've really seen you in action. But somehow, I don't think that was the brightest idea."

"Not the brightest idea? I just saved your--" Something inside her finally broke loose. Dry claws ripped across his stomach; when he doubled over, her knee caught him in the jaw.

Then iron talons seized her from behind by her wrists; a muscular tail coiled around her waist, and she was lifted, struggling, into the air.

Riddick was still on the ground, clutching his stomach, as she was taken higher. It must have been terror that made her think he was still laughing. Laughing, as the circle of monsters closed around him.


	13. Janus: Rediscovery

****

XIII. Janus: Rediscovery

Chimneys.

They rise up, obscene shades of neon pink and purple in my view, like fingers pointing in accusation. I have a hard time not struggling in the grasp of the thing carrying me, and the slashes at my midriff don't help. They burn, but I don't think I feel any venom. But fuck if I know what her venom would feel like. Other creatures flock around my captor, surrounding us with eerie whoops and wails as we careen dizzily through the forest of adobe towers.

Was this Carolyn's last sight? I've got to admit it's quite a ride. A small part of m mind's curled up inside my skull, gibbering, but the rest of my awareness is bent on survival.

__

Old friends, Jack?

The creature carrying me circles twice around a low chimney. Hovering over the opening, it loosens its talons and drops me inside. Deep sand covers the floor, but my landing's not exactly soft. But I'm still alive, so I can't complain. The clicks and screeches outside echo oddly as I stand: I'm in some sort of cave. Faintly glowing lichens spatter the walls, but there's no tunnels like Carolyn described after her little adventure in the cavern where Zeke met his end. Instead, there's a single metal door set into one rock wall.

Against the opposite wall, a figure lies curled around itself.

"Kat?"

No answer.

I move toward her; her form shimmers pink in my sight. Standing over her, I nudge her with one booted foot. Still no response. I crouch down in front of her.

Kat's legs flew out, sending Riddick reeling across the floor, but he stayed on his feet. New blood began to seep from the wounds at his waist, as Kat unfolded herself and rose.

"Give me one good reason not to kill you, Riddick." Her eyes narrowed. "I'm not yours anymore. I refuse."

Silvered eyes studied her, then locked on a collar that was cold and unmoving. "Like I said, Kat, you'd be mine as long as that collar wore you."

Her hand rose to the behavioral inhibitor, only now noticing its quiescence. "How...?"

"I wore one once," Riddick grated out. "The trick is to get mad enough that the inhibition can't hold you. Simple for a convict... not so easy for a fully trained slave."

"Everything you did to me," Kat hissed, her breath quickening.

Riddick shrugged. "Just consider it another kind of training."

"Why?"

He grinned. "I was bored."

"What?"

"Come on, now," he snorted. "You don't actually expect me to tell you I've got some sort of atrophied sense of charity in here."

Fury rose up in her, and she lashed out again, sending the big man flying. Some small part of her thought, _I didn't know I could do that!_ and then she was straddling him, snarling.

"Once a Trainer," she growled, "always a Trainer." Drawing out one of her blades, she carved a quick and messy glyph in the flesh of Riddick's left wrist. Then, extending one glistening claw, she let a drop or two of liquid fall into her mouth, and licked the bloody wound on his wrist.

His legs kicked and jerked. Kat thought she could hear the stuff sizzling into his skin, then realized the sound was his wheezing laughter.

"Oh, shit, Kat. What the hell did you do to me?" Pulling his arm out of her grasp, he cradled his wrist.

Though still raw and open, the wound had stopped bleeding. The venom seemed to have clotted the blood, but Kat knew it would also ensure a permanent scar--a lower case 't' with a slanted double crossbar.

The sign of a Trainer.

Ripping a strip of cloth from the bottom of his already ragged shirt to bind up the lesion, Riddick gave a pained grin and said, "I'll wear it proudly."

There was a creak from the far end of the cavern as the rusty door began to open.

Riddick let Kat pull him to his feet as she pressed one of her daggers into his hand. They waited together, blades and claws ready for whatever was coming.

"If you are quite finished killing each other," Imam's voice called, "there is someone here who would very much like to see you."

Riddick dropped the dagger, and Kat gasped.

Imam's face was creased like old leather, his goatee streaked with white. He smiled at Riddick, then at Kat, and the creases deepened into valleys.

Riddick stared into the next room. A girl--a young woman--stood shadowed in a further doorway.

But shadows didn't matter to a man with a shine job and too many years spent with the shadows of his own mind.

Tall, slim, and graceful. He recognized the color of the jeans as black, the tank top a dark gray. On one hip hung a pistol; on the other, a long dagger. Her stance said she and those weapons were old friends. Her hair had been cut painfully short, and with an inner lurch he realized he didn't know what color that hair was.

Kat's protesting voice came from somewhere behind him: "But it's only been a few months! How could she--"

"_Riddick!_" And then she was embracing him, as Imam quietly led Kat away.

"Hey, Jack--what color is your hair?"

"It's brown, you stupid ass."

Kat followed Imam through a labyrinth of tunnels and caves, most dimly lit by the bioluminescent lichen spotting the walls. She touched it, and her hand came away faintly glowing. From time to time, they passed other people, nearly all of them pets like--and yet not like--herself. They came to a large cave--a cavern, really--and Imam bade Kat sit in a long nook carved into the wall. He lowered himself gingerly down next to her.

"I will begin simply, with the age discrepancy. It is called relativity. You have been traveling in space for quite some time. Because of the speed at which you traveled, time, for you, slowed down. While you may have only lived some few months, we have lived five years."

That the universe would behave in such a way was beyond Kat's comprehension, but she couldn't argue with the evidence of her eyes. Imam had aged. Jack had grown up. Kat thought of Riddick's face when he'd seen Jack, the strange smile he'd given to the lovely young woman. _What the hell are you waiting for?_ she'd asked Riddick once. _The right time_, he'd replied. She hadn't understood that until now.

Imam continued. "And as for our... hosts." He looked off into the darkness for a long moment. "When humans first colonized Janus, they did not realize it was already inhabited. And it was a long time before they recognized that the natives were not simply beasts."

A shiver ran down Kat's spine.

"Jack heard them when we were on Janus, before," Imam whispered. "She told me about the terrible birdsong, but I... I did not realize..." His voice trailed off.

Then he shook himself and resumed his explanation. "After Janus was colonized, one of the nesting grounds was invaded, and the largest nest was kidnapped, taken away in a ship for study--to the crew's great misfortune. The crew of that ship, the _Chivalrous_, did not expect any such ferocity from the fledglings. The young ones must have survived on the flesh of the hapless crewmen until the ship crashed."

"Onto--" Kat hesitated. "Onto a planet with three suns...?"

The holy man nodded, solemn. "After many generations, living only off each other and what little life was on that world, the creatures had descended into savagery. The monsters which killed so many of our companions were beasts in truth. But on such a deadly planet, with so little food, they will eventually wipe themselves out." For a moment, he didn't speak. Then he took her hands in a firm grip. "The people of _this_ world are not monsters, and they are not savages."

A stray thought--_A Trainer-turned-priest would know the difference_--slid through Kat's mind. Then, at a sudden rasping from the gloom, she looked around. A shadow detached itself from a darkened tunnel. The dim light reaching out from the walls didn't seem to harm the thing. It stopped a short distance away, wings moving slowly, sightless head weaving in time to its slow thrum.

Kat swallowed hard, and her hands tightened on Imam's. The creature gave a hideous grin, chittered at them, then turned and melted back into the murky corridor from which it came.

"Come, now." Imam rose. "There is a man you must meet. He will answer the rest of your questions."

This one slipped through the hive corridor like a whisper of wind. The touch of the dim light speckling the walls did not affect it--its kind had long since become inured to the weak glow. The new female had been afraid of this one, but newcomers were always alarmed. This one had heard, though, that she had killed a hivemate thoughtless enough to frighten her with a ceremonial greeting. She would be respected.

This one slipped into a burrow which opened out into a courtyard. It observed two human figures sitting near each other in intense debate. Why did the other ones constantly use speech? Movement, song, and scent carried so much more immediate information, but the other ones always insisted on formal language. This one stopped briefly to listen to the discussion. The intricacies of human conversation were difficult to untangle, but this one could make out the general meaning.

The two were male and female, but this one had long since despaired of ever understanding genders or their interactions. It had hatched from its egg cluster neither knowing nor caring who its parent had been. "Love" was utterly foreign to its kind. Their closest concept could only loosely be translated as "companionship in one another's abilities." These wingless things had puny claws and teeth, but this one had learned that their strengths lay elsewhere.

The big male--who, this one conceded, would likely be a challenge in any test of dominance--was insisting on returning to That Place. Why would he want to kill off the descendents of the Lost Nest? If they were consuming each other, as the human elder had reported, they were already as good as dead.

The female's voice was strident.

This one was accustomed to this female, who had arrived several years before. She had never become quite comfortable with this one or its kin.

The sonar used by its kind was often too high-pitched for the other ones to hear, but it could pick out the finest detail. The drops of wetness creeping along the female's face were a sign of distress. This one could appreciate her reluctance to pit herself and her mate against the remnants of the Lost Nest--but perhaps, if she accomplished such a thing, the fear of this one and its kin would no longer hold her so.

Tiring of trying to untangle alien thoughts, this one turned its head to the sky. The shape and texture of the atmosphere roused its wings to flight. All this one had ever really needed were the wind, the hunt, and the song of its companions.


	14. Lost and Found

****

XIV. Lost and Found

I have never been a holy man. One day I was a Trainer of pets, the next I was a man on the run from my employers, hiding out in a mosque to escape punishment for the murder of a female slave who had dared to fight back. As a child, I had attended services in that very same mosque only a few times a year, but the imam there still remembered me.

Remembered me, and forgave.

By the time the old priest had saved enough to buy my passage off-planet, I--Abu al-Walid--was a different man. I believed--or thought I did--with all my heart.

Then the crash--and the deaths of my three adoptive nephews, boys entrusted to me for the hajj that I'd foolishly imagined would give me true forgiveness. Such promising young men, it didn't seem possible that they were the sons of such a dangerous man as Sheik Abdullah.

It tore my believer's heart out of me. Where was God when these three innocents were being devoured?

Where was God when a young Trainer was murdering a slave?

I know now that it was God's justice. I know now that Kat's appearance in my life was Allah's voice whispering, _Here is your path to repentance._ I had thought I could simply turn my life away from evil, begin anew and all would be well. But there are no beginnings without endings. I will make right my wrongs. Then I can finally lay my boys to rest.

And so I now work to help slaves like the ones I once harmed. I am not the only former Trainer to do so.

Joining me on the flight from New Mecca were three other former Trainers, and Jack. The girl's time as a fellow pilgrim has changed her as much as the trauma of the eclipse had. For her, the enclave on Janus is a good cause, something to give herself to. But for myself, it is a way to redeem my life. Daily I work among former slaves--some of whom I trained myself--every day a chastisement for my early misdeeds. My life among the winged terrors of Janus is a constant reminder that Ali, Hassan, and Suleiman paid for sins that were not their own.

I do not know how much of this Jack understands. Perhaps, once Kat meets the man we call Moses, she will understand, and forgive.

To the humans living there, it was known as New Jerusalem. To the indigenous winged folk, it was known simply as the Hive. Half burrow-and-cavern system, half subterranean city, the New Jerusalem Hive took in escaped pets and other slaves, laying the groundwork for an interplanetary underground railroad. The first settlers in this odd cooperative had set up geothermal power far beneath the surface of Janus, running the city off the heat of the planet itself. It was so deep underground that no satellite could pick up even a residual signature. All this Imam explained to Kat as he led her deeper and deeper into the earth.

But Kat comprehended more than he explained: Very few people, human or otherwise, seemed to understand the real reason the fearsome Janite Elders had originally invited these settlers in. Kat couldn't tell whether Imam knew that reason; if he did, he chose not to share it with her.

Being fully lit, the human quarter was closed off to its photophobic hosts. The humans had expanded the caves, carving out subterranean homes, gardens, farms, workshops, and businesses--an entire community hidden from the outside galaxy.

One of the monsters stood guard at the first set of double doors Imam brought Kat to. She watched in disturbed awe as Imam and the creature conversed quietly, each understanding the other's language. Moving aside, the creature depressed a panel in the corridor wall, and the doors rumbled open. Kat slunk past, following Imam. She wondered how long had it taken Imam and Jack to feel comfortable among these predators.

It was pitch black between the first and second set of doors--not even the usual bioluminescence for comfort. But the second set of doors opened quickly into another corridor, this one illuminated by a host of electric lamps.

The corridor opened almost immediately into an enormous cavern. The grand room had been carved out in one piece, leaving decorative pillars of living rock spaced evenly about for support; lighted panels were set into the walls and the high ceiling.

Humans and pets mingled equally, as though there were no difference between them. None of the pets wore collars. Children--human, pet, and mixed--ran freely among family and strangers alike. The scents, the sounds, the muted roar of continuously echoing conversations, it all combined to remind Kat of New Mecca and even Babylon--but here were no unfriendly stares or leers, and neither of the other cities had this underscent of breathing earth. She wanted to stay and explore the crafts, the clothing, the foods, and the people, but Imam led her rapidly though the gallery, stopping briefly only to greet friends.

Countless other corridors, carved in flowing arches, led out of the main cathedral cavern. The corridor Imam led Kat into ended in yet another set of doors; he punched a code into a keypad, and these doors gave way with a smooth hiss, rather than the earlier rumble. Inside was another dark area. Past the second double doors, the interior was again lit only by lichens on the walls and ceilings; Kat stumbled a little as the floor began to slant back upwards.

Imam turned to a door set into the wall. Knocking once, he entered, gesturing Kat to join him. Inside, an old man sat behind a huge desk at the far wall, signing papers beneath a small lamp. An ex-slave, a female, stood near the desk, speaking in low tones to him. Both had looked up at Imam and Kat's entry, the old man rising to his feet upon seeing Kat.

The woman looked to be in her late forties. She was entirely hairless, covered instead in fine scales; a crest of short spines topped her skull. The bronze of her scales complemented the intense blue of her eyes. Instead of pleasure, though, this woman looked as though she'd been made for combat. But like the rest of the ex-slaves, she wore no behavioral inhibitor. She smiled at Kat and Imam, but her hand was nervously smoothing down the front of her blouse.

Kat's jaw dropped. It was the scaled woman from the kennel! The one who'd kept taunting the boy....

"What happened to the boy that--" Kat blurted out, but stopped.

"Daniel?" the scaled woman asked. "He lives here now." Her tone was abrupt, cold.

__

His name was David, Kat thought to herself, wondering how the woman could have forgotten the boy's name. "Then why--"

The old man cleared his throat and rounded the edge of the desk. "Prissa was on assignment," he explained, his voice a refined brogue, "helping the kennel owner smuggle out pets who'd been abandoned to 'euthanasia.'" He took Kat's hand in his own, and her heart jumped into her throat.

She'd seen his face before. If only she could remember where.

Though his dusky skin was covered with fine lines, the gray of his eyes matching his salt-and-pepper hair, he bore a trace resemblance to Prissa--and, Kat realized with a deep sense of shock, to herself.

Kat's eyes narrowed. "Who _are_ you?" And then she remembered the photograph on the wall of the kennel on Babylon, and her mind's eye read the placard she'd ignored before. "Moshe Ibrahim," she murmured.

"A sadly ironic name for the creator of your kind," he admitted. "The need for all this, in fact," and he waved his hand, denoting the whole hidden community, "has been due to my own supreme arrogance." He sighed. "My original intention was to engineer humans who could survive in harsh, alien environments." He picked up a small tool, crossed behind Kat, and deftly removed the collar she'd worn for as long as she could remember. "This," he said, holding the thing distastefully, "has been my reward."

Imam touched Kat's shoulder, murmuring that he had business to attend to elsewhere, and left. She felt naked at his absence, a disturbing thought that she shoved away. "But... if you're the creator of the slave race, then... then you should have died last century!"

The man known as Moses gave a short, bitter laugh. "Oh, indeed, I died. But merely for legal purposes. My continued good health is due to yet more molecular tinkering. That particular knowledge, though, will die with me, I assure you."

The scaled woman, Prissa, shifted nervously. "Moshe," she said urgently.

Ibrahim gave her a quelling look, then turned back to Kat. "Prissa here is rather concerned with your companion, the young man who came with you. Richard B. Riddick, I believe his name is?" Kat drew away nervously. "Oh, don't worry," the old man continued. "Every one of us is a criminal of some sort. Myself included. But I find myself somewhat disappointed that he hasn't chosen to stay with us. Even more so that young Jack will be leaving with him." He sighed again. "But... they have their own paths to follow."

"They have to murder the Lost Nest, you mean," Prissa shot back.

"Those creatures are dying anyway, Prissa, you know that. And if our hosts--their own kin--don't object to it, then neither should you or I." Moshe sounded irritated, as if this was an old argument.

"You mean they're leaving?" Kat interjected. "When?"

"Oh, yes," Moshe said, "their ship has already been safely--and secretly--brought from the spaceport. I imagine you'll be wanting to see them off. Just a moment." He switched off his lamp, plunging the room back into the semi-darkness of the Hive corridors. Then he called into a doorway that Kat hadn't noticed before. "Would you please come in here?"

A nightmare emerged from the shadows of the hallway. One of the monsters--_Natives_, Kat tried to convince herself. _People._

"Would you be so kind as to escort this young lady to the north courtyard?"

"Moshe!" Prissa snapped. "You should be ashamed of yourself. Kat's new here, remember? I'll take her."

Kat looked back and forth between the gargoylish Janite and the scaled woman. She suddenly wondered which was the real Prissa--the tame woman who was Moshe Ibrahim's aide, or the half-mad slave taunting a boy with the prospect of death.

"No," Kat said nervously. "I already know I want to stay here. I need to get used to these... people."

The nightmare in the corner gave a satisfied thrum, cocking its head at Kat. The gesture was so absurdly similar to the one Riddick used that Kat didn't know whether to laugh or scream. Taking a long look at the thing, she said, "You won't hurt me. Will you?"

It gave a slow, clear shake of its massive head.

"Do you... have a name?"

Another unmistakable head shake, followed by a cackling hiss.

"They don't use names," Moshe advised her. "Only the very oldest ones even have a conception of 'self' in the same way that we humans do." He gave her a warm smile. "Go on, then. Your friends won't wait forever."

Kat started to turn back to the door behind her, but the creature gave a short bark. It was clearly waiting for her to follow it into the dark burrow it had come out of. _Oh--there are lights outside the other door_, Kat reminded herself, faintly embarrassed.

Giving a shaky smile to Moshe, Kat stepped out of the office and into the most terrifying few minutes of her life.

The burrows and hallways her guide led her through swarmed with other creatures, all chirping, hissing, and whooping. No sounds or smells of domesticity here. It was all that demented chittering--similar to the hunting calls of the eclipse creatures but somehow more musical--but was that any better?--and the distinctive odor of rotten meat. Biting her lip against moans of fear, she broke out in a sweat, her claws extended. But none of the monstrous creatures gave her so much as a second 'look.'

Jack, all smiles, met Kat where the hallway led out into the northern courtyard--in reality, a small crater. Aside from Kat's guide, none of the creatures were anywhere nearby, though the _Nightfall_ waited with running lights doused.

Then the lights flashed on, and Kat squinted against the sudden, harsh glare to see Riddick walking down the ship's boarding ramp. A rustle behind her told her the creature had vanished back into the gloomy tunnel, but Kat felt it hadn't gone far. She didn't know why that thought should be reassuring.

"Aren't you coming with us, Kat?" Jack asked. But her eyes were on Riddick.

Kat shook her head. "I think I'll stay here a while. Are you two really going--back _there_?"

Riddick's grin matched the ones Kat had only seen on the Janite monsters. "The next eclipse isn't due for a while. By the time we get there, I figure we'll have about fifteen years to kill off every last one of the fuckers."

Jack scuffed her foot in the dirt, looking not entirely convinced of the whole operation. But Kat knew she'd do anything for Riddick. She wondered if the reverse would also be true.

"Riddick--" she started, but he cut her off.

"Don't thank me, Kat. You don't know anything about me."

She hadn't been about to thank the man--she doubted he would know what to do with gratitude. "I'm a pet," she snapped instead. "I _know_ my owners."

"Really."

"I know you like to think you're in control, you like to think you don't care. I know why you left Jack on New Mecca. And I know whose name was on your lips when you thought I wasn't watching."

Riddick stared at her, unspeaking, for several moments. Then, turning his back on Kat, he took Jack's hand in his own. They boarded the _Nightfall_ together.

A weather satellite passed over the terminus from the scorched dayside of Janus to the unforgiving black of night. WS27-J kept routine watch over the complicated weather systems of the two-faced planet, a task suited to the complacent nature of a machine. Its human masters demanded constant information on climate conditions, for reasons both practical and scientific.

Occasionally, WS27-J presented small glitches that the meteorologists had come to expect. It was, after all, only a machine. But it wasn't programming errors that caused the glitch. WS27-J was a shell program.

A bloom of heat flared far below, well inside the nightside terminus. The signature matched the artificial heat produced by the engines of a starship or other large, manmade machine. Abruptly, WS27-J went into standby mode, and somewhere on the planet, a control man complained about yet another bug in the unreliable satellite.

Somewhere else on the planet, another control man hastily recorded coordinates sent in by a military satellite. MS9-J had spotted an artificial heat signature where none were supposed to exist. The control man notified his superiors, then sent an acknowledgement to the satellite.

MS9-J returned to standby mode. WS27-J came back online.

The _Nightfall_ left orbit.

__

End.


End file.
